Article: Thinking agile vs working agile. What’s the difference? The Agile Manifesto and 12 agile principles.
Read about agile behaviour of the 12 agile principles below
Click on one of the 12 principles to learn more.
For each principle you can see below the associated behaviour that we look for in an organization which is claimed to ‘be’ agile (i.e. working agile as well as thinking agile).
Additionally we give examples of agile practices that are often used in order to exhibit the associated behaviour.
Customer Focus
1We deliver products that customers need.
They work and are released at regular intervals.
Behavior
1LISTEN - THEN TALK
We listen.
To customers when co-creating prototypes.
Practice
1EXAMPLES
Story Mapping
MVP
Working in sprints
Value increments
Changing needs
2You think you know what you want.
Until the first prototype.
Deliver value – not requirements!
Behavior
2BE OPEN
Accept that needs change based on new knowledge.
Fewer risks by frequent deliverables.
Practice
2EXAMPLES
Re-prioritize needs. Refine backlog and demonstrate.
Receive feedback in each sprint.
Frequent delivery
3Every 2 weeks:
Deliver what’s needed.
Deliver what was agreed.
Behavior
3AGREEMENTS
Focus on reliability and visibility.
Daily continuous integration.
Practice
3EXAMPLES
High modularity of code.
Many environments (DevOps).
In it - together
4Developer and PO co-operate.
Daily. Closely together.
Behavior
4WE & US!
– not them and us
Talking like co-located.
About everything.
Practice
4EXAMPLES
No siloes.
Stand-up’s with PO.
Customer in the team.
Moti-vation
5High motivation:
Happiness & initiative.
Better results.
Behavior
5SELF-MANAGEMENT
Trust.
Involve & Engage.
Self organize.
Practice
5EXAMPLES
Vision. Guidance.
Stable teams.
Relations. No control!
Face to face
6Two people at a whiteboard: The most effective communication ever.
Behavior
6Honesty. Mutual trust.
Common decisions.
Same room.
Listen actively.
Practice
6EXAMPLES
Meet in person.
Daily stand-ups. Sprint Planning. Backlog refinement.
Working Product
7We measure progress by watching software or products that work.
Behavior
7IT WORKS
Everyone test until it works.
Demo’es.
Deploy often.
Practice
7EXAMPLES
Test frequently. Small increments.
We evaluate what we see.
Sustain-able
8Humane working condition.
No stress and working late hours.
Behavior
8BALANCE
Stable pace.
Proactive attitude.
Relentness improvement.
Practice
8EXAMPLES
Events at fixed cadance.
No unfair hard deadlines.
Excel-lence
9We know what we’re doing. Fail fast.
We want to be the best.
Behavior
9LEARNING
Robust design.
We learn from our mistakes.
Ideation.
Practice
9EXAMPLES
New techonology.
Lifelong learning.
Acknowledge creativity.
Simpli-city
10Create simple solutions.
Reduce complexity.
Small steps.
Behavior
10INCREMENTs
We build the most important first.
Build as simple as possible.
Practice
10EXAMPLES
Story Mapping Workshops.
Minimum Viable Products.
Self-manage-ment
11Best results are achieved in teams that are self organising.
Behavior
11ACCOUNTABLE
Team is responsible and trusted.
Everybody is in charge.
Freedom under responsibility.
Practice
11EXAMPLES
Cross-functional teams deliver error prone Features.
Decision power in teams: Intrinsic motivation.
Retro-spectives
12We look back and learn – often – and improve. Relentlessly.
Behavior
12IMPROVING
The team aims at constant improving.
We inspire eachother. Ensure learning.
Practice
12EXAMPLES
Retrospectives every sprint.
Demoes with customer feedback.
Thinking agile (some call it ‘being agile’) and working agile is not the same.
At AgiliT we believe that only when teams follow the intention behind The Agile Manifesto and 12 associated Principles as well as clearly manifest and show a behaviour that supports it, then you are on the right track and highly likely to being able to achieve the benefits of agility.
We are also looking for evidense of a Learning Organization (ref. Peter Senge’s book The Fifth Discipline).
Working agile
By using agile practices such as Daily Stand-up’s , Retrospectives and delivering products based on a prioritized backlog, you *work* agile.
Thinking agile
We believe that working agile is insufficient. It’s a matter of thinking agility into basically everything you do and at all levels in your organization – for leaders as well as followers.
References
The Agile Manifesto for Software Development (2001).
Learning Organization : Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline.
A Scrum Book by Jeff Sutherland, James O. Coplien and the Scrum Patterns Group (2019)
Same article in Danish: Artikel – Hvornår arbejder man agilt??
We would like to thank Bent Jensen, BestBrains Academy for inspiring us to provide this overview.